In this article, we will explore the topic of Controlled natural language in depth, analyzing its origins, its implications in today's society and its relevance in the contemporary world. Throughout history, Controlled natural language has played a fundamental role in the cultural, political and social evolution of humanity. From its beginnings to the present, Controlled natural language has been the subject of debate, controversy and study by experts in different disciplines. Through the detailed analysis of Controlled natural language, we will seek to delve into its meaning, its impact and its importance in the current context, providing an exhaustive and enriching vision of this topic of global relevance.
Controlled natural languages (CNLs) are subsets of natural languages that are obtained by restricting the grammar and vocabulary in order to reduce or eliminate ambiguity and complexity. Traditionally, controlled languages fall into two major types: those that improve readability for human readers (e.g. non-native speakers), and those that enable reliable automatic semantic analysis of the language.
The first type of languages (often called "simplified" or "technical" languages), for example ASD Simplified Technical English, Caterpillar Technical English, IBM's Easy English, are used in the industry to increase the quality of technical documentation, and possibly simplify the semi-automatic translation of the documentation. These languages restrict the writer by general rules such as "Keep sentences short", "Avoid the use of pronouns", "Only use dictionary-approved words", and "Use only the active voice".
The second type of languages have a formal syntax and formal semantics, and can be mapped to an existing formal language, such as first-order logic. Thus, those languages can be used as knowledge representation languages, and writing of those languages is supported by fully automatic consistency and redundancy checks, query answering, etc.
Existing controlled natural languages include:
IETF has reserved simple
as a BCP 47 variant subtag for simplified versions of languages.
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